Congo's militias mobilising again, leading peace activist warns

Simmering mutual distrust, aggravated by fears that forthcoming elections are being rigged, are seeing many former soldiers – including children – drawn back to their units, according to the head of a respected charity

Fears are growing that the forthcoming elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo will trigger a new wave of violence, amid reports that militias are re-forming.

One of Congo's leading peacemakers, Henri Ladyi – who has been called "Africa's Schindler" for his work rehabilitating child soldiers in the republic's eastern region – said he feared years of hard work in demobilising militia members, especially child soldiers, was being undone. They were being pulled back into the bush to get ready for a fresh conflict, eight years after the formal end of Africa's largest war, which killed 5 million people.

"The election motivates many people and many armed groups to go back to using guns as a way to try and gain power," said Ladyi, director of the Centre Résolution Conflits.

"The numbers are increasing and many ex-combatants are going back to the bush now: violence is what they know. Many of those who were demobilised were not accepted when they tried to go back into the communities – people were very angry – so they are easily recruited back to be with the bandits, and the militias are building strength. People are very fearful about what will happen in this next month."

Ladyi's charity, which is involved in disarming and resettling combatants and returning the displaced to their homes, also runs more than 70 community radio stations, reaching the most isolated villages and gathering information on emerging conflict. In areas of the vast Kivu region, Ladyi said, 16,000 people had already fled their homes in fear of a new war.

He said chiefs of the Mai Mai – the name given to the vicious gangs who roamed eastern Congo, some politically motivated, others defending territory and stealing cattle – were preparing for clashes as they believed Congo's president, Joseph Kabila, was cooperating with the Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, to organise wide-scale election fraud. Government efforts to disarm the militias, whose numbers have dwindled in recent years, were undermined by the fact that no proper peace and reconciliation process was followed, said Ladyi.

"We should have learned from every other African country – Liberia, South Africa, Rwanda – who put in place a reconciliation process after conflict. We did not succeed in DRC, and these leaders who are in power also don't admit what their role was, so people do not trust them.

"There is no forgiveness in communities: people live alongside each other, shop in the same market, but with hatred still. We will not have peace in DRC until we have reconciliation. I fear instead we will have more war."

The fragile democracy is already being undermined by troubling reports about the elections. The number of polling stations planned, in a country the size of western Europe, is far less than in 2003, while reports suggest the electoral roll has been tampered with and is littered with "ghost voters" to prepare for a rigged result.

The last Congo war directly involved eight African nations, and peace is fragile. A new conflict in DRC would have huge implications for a region where the UN already has the world's largest peacekeeping mission.